Florida teacher on leave after raccoons drowned

A Florida high school teacher is on paid administrative leave after cell phone video appears to show him drowning wild raccoons during class.

A parent who didn't want to be identified said her son came home crying after he said the teacher had filled trash cans with water and dunked the caged raccoons in them.

One video shows the tip of a raccoon's snout sticking out just above the surface of the water.

"I was disgusted. At first, I was in shock, of course, but I watched the video, and it's horrific. It's disgusting, and I can't believe it happened at school".

The student said the animals had killed several chickens that the school was raising in a shed behind the building and said the teacher made students join in drowning the animals.

Her son told her the agriculture teacher threatened that anyone who recorded or took pictures of the incident would be given a referral.

Two raccoons and an opossum were killed Monday at Forest High School in Ocala, Fla., the mother, whom the station did not name, said. "It made me sick", the student's mother told WKMG-TV.

"When the raccoons tried to come up for air they had metal rods and they held them down with metal rods and when the raccoon would try to pop its head up they held water hoses in its face to drown it", a parent told WKMG, which released a heavily censored clip of the incident in which no animals are visible.

The teacher, Dewie Brewton, was placed on paid administrative leave with pay Tuesday while the school investigates the incident, said Kevin Christian, spokesman for the Marion County Public Schools.